These Sony in-ear headphones are the cheapest they've been in over a year

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Amazon

Amazon currently has a solid deal on a good pair of midrange headphones, with the Sony XBA-H1 marked down to $119. That’s about $30 off their usual going rate, and the most significant drop they’ve had since Black Friday 2014. While they did sell for as low as $85 a couple years back, discounts have been exceedingly rare ever since.

Either way, this is a good price for a headphone that already performed well for the money. The XBA-H1s earned a spot in our in-ears headphones buying guide for providing a well-balanced, accurate sound that gives ample care to the highs, mids, and lows. You’ll find greater transparency as you go up the price bracket, but what’s here is clean, and has impressive width on top of that.

There are technical details we could get into regarding the hybrid drivers Sony’s employed here, but all you need to know is that the major parts of the XBA-H1s’ signature play nice with each other, and as a result it works well with any type of music you throw at it. The only thing I would suggest is that you burn them in first, as they do seem to sound better over time.

Fit is always particularly subjective when it comes to in-ear headphones, but if you have trouble, the variety of ear tips Sony includes in the box should help. I found the the sporty, red-and-black design to look nice, too, though the whole thing skews on the larger side.

If there’s a hangup here, it’ll most likely be the fact that there’s no inline remote controls. That’s a little difficult to excuse on what’s normally a $150 headphone. Just be prepared to keep your hands on your phone if you take these for a run.

Sony

Otherwise, there isn’t much to dislike. Reviews at The Wirecutter and TechRadar have come to the same conclusion. And while their 3.8 rating on Amazon (after 83 reviews) is a bit lower than I’d like from a product I’m recommending, all I can really say is that my experience has been much different than the handful of one-star ratings on there. If it helps, a few of those negative reviews are based off of refurbished models, which I wouldn’t advise you to buy.

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